<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Our Cup Runneth Over by Loopdeloup</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662075">Our Cup Runneth Over</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loopdeloup/pseuds/Loopdeloup'>Loopdeloup</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Voyager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Damn it Kathryn!, F/M, Fluff, Set just before S4E7 Scientific Method, angst angst and more angst, horrible angst, spiralling into angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:17:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662075</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loopdeloup/pseuds/Loopdeloup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It comes upon them with very little warning, after an ordinary dinner, in an ordinary week. If anything, things have been unusually sedate. The usual banter. The usual flirting. The safety of their usual taboos. </p><p>There is no particular catalyst. But even the slowest drip will eventually make a glass overrun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chakotay &amp; Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Voyager's Worst Kept Secret</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set mid Season 4. Just before things J/C get kind of awful. </p><p>Gets more angsty as we go along, sorry. I am re-watching the late seasons and it is just so awful how they go cold to each other.</p><p>All feedback much appreciated!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He usually plays into her pretense that no one sees the thing that sizzles between them, a heartbeat away from bursting into flame. </p><p>Hell, he usually plays into her pretense that nothing sizzles between them at all.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“But enough ship’s business!” Rising to her feet, Kathryn waves her wine glass with dismissive distaste at the empty dishes spread over the table, as if they are guilty parties who have insisted on dealing with the practical matters that occupied them during the whole meal. She moves over to sit at her end of the couch and pats it in invitation, “Tell me some ship’s gossip!”</p><p>Chakotay too rises, scowls briefly at the empty plates in turn before filling his own glass and walking over to top up hers. Placing the half-full bottle on the coffee table, he sits down at the far end of the couch, angled towards her. “Hmm.”</p><p>They both pause and sit in companionable silence for a while, letting the more mundane ship’s business recede, thinking over more personal matters that might raise a smile in the other.</p><p>Chakotay’s mind stops at the closest thing to a smile that hits him, “Well, as a bit of a mix between the two, ship’s business and gossip, Crewmen Rahn and Dell have requested time with you next week to program their wedding.”</p><p>“Ah, a wedding. Wonderful. Always so good for ship’s morale.” She doesn’t sound especially convinced.  </p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>They both are quiet for a time recalling the last wedding between crewmen Foxx and Barata, which had had to be reprogrammed all of three times due to emergencies of varying degrees of severity. The third time actually looked like it might never occur when Miguel Barata had gone missing in action on an away mission and was feared dead for three days. The ceremony had finally taken place some five months after originally being scheduled, when they found themselves in an almost eerily mundane stretch of space in which nothing went wrong for an unprecedented dream run lasting nearly a full three weeks. Despite the initial ship-wide foreboding that something bad <em>must</em> be about to occur, the wedding had actually gone off without a hitch, involving the whole crew in their different shifts dancing, drinking and generally carousing in the then wildly popular luau holodeck program over a solid twenty-four hours.</p><p>“They’ve apparently already been talking it over with Neelix. They want to do a retro theme. You´ll never guess...” He raises his eyebrows in challenge.</p><p>She waves a hand dismissively, “I’ll take your word for it, I’ll never guess. But I can already tell I’m not much going to like it.”</p><p>“Maybe you gave up too easy, but as for not liking it, your instincts are right. It’s Captain Kirk’s Enterprise, the Mirror Universe look.”</p><p>Janeway slouches into an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, that one I <em>could</em> have guessed. Why always the holoprogram version of Kirk’s Enterprise? And just to up the ante, the <em>Mirror Universe</em>? He was a hell of a Captain, they were different times in Starfleet’s infancy, but he was –”</p><p>“I know, I know, one of your most admired childhood heroes. Up there with Kat Cornwell and Christopher Pike.”</p><p>She shoots him a dark look, not liking having her whole vent on the ways in which one of her favourite Starfleet Captains had been maligned in the popular imagination being shut down before she has even warmed up into it. “And he was nothing like the way they portray him,” she emphasizes acidly. “All the serious historical biographical sources confirm he really was an honourable, admirable captain, dedicated to Federation principles and his ship before all else.”</p><p>“I don’t doubt it. Kirk, Kat, Pike... Have you noticed how all the <em>best</em> captains had names that tend to feature the letter K?”</p><p>She narrows her eyes at him. “And have you ever noticed how all the <em>best</em> First Officers refrain from both slavishly flattering and teasing their captains?”</p><p>“Maybe the former, Captain, but I really think you need to review the <em>serious historical biographical</em> <em>sources</em> on the latter,” he raises his glass at her with a fine flash of dimples.</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>They both sip their wine, lapsing again into comfortable thought. Kathryn is the first to break it, “But seriously, why is everyone always so fixated on the mirror universe? I guess at least Tuvok will be pleased, or what passes for pleased for a Vulcan. His willingness to do the evil Spock goatee look never ceases to surprise me. Every single Halloween.”</p><p>“Mm. Him and every other male Vulcan obliged to wear a costume.”</p><p>“As predictable as cats. It does suit them, at least. The facial hair is pretty much the only difference between a mirror Vulcan and a normal Vulcan anyway. But as for myself, I might be convinced to do Kirk’s green and gold dress uniform, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”</p><p>“But the mirror one, right? The cross-over sleeveless silk one?”</p><p>She rolls her eyes, “If absolutely necessary.”</p><p>His eyes dance, “You know it is usually considered <em>absolutely necessary</em> that women mirror universe captains wear the bare-midriff version of that uniform.”   </p><p>“Oh, there’s <em>no way</em> I’m doing that.”</p><p>“Oh, come on Kathryn, it’s a festive event! For the sake of the crew! The outfits are the whole point of the mirror universe.”</p><p>“Just because <em>you</em> like the chance to do your hot pirate look.”</p><p>“I’ll happily show you mine if you show me yours!”</p><p>“Hah! You wish!”</p><p>He ducks his head down in a dimpled smile, swallowing the urge to turn serious and say, <em>Yes, I actually, really, really do</em>. But there is only so much flirting his Captain will allow before she shuts it down and he is wary of getting her guard up again.</p><p>“I’d honestly be more likely to do the <em>facial hair</em> than the bare midriff,” she continues darkly after taking another sip of wine. “In any case, I’m more and more tempted to expunge all those old Enterprise holoprograms from the database. It’s like they were all written by Tom Paris or something.”</p><p>“You could always just make the crew have to read a chapter of one of your <em>serious</em> <em>historical biographical sources</em> on your pristine, perfect Captain Kirk before accessing them.”</p><p>“Hm. Tempting.”</p><p>“I think you’d be doing yourself and Starfleet a disservice though. Like it or not, the dash and romance of those early holoprograms are what inspired a lot of people to join up. And I’m not convinced people really require such pristine, perfect Captains as you seem to think.” He tries very hard to keep his face neutral and innocent as she narrows her eyes at him. Before she can speak, he hurries on, remembering the real gossip sweeping the ship, “Ah, and speaking of Tom Paris… It seems some people are claiming the win on the betting pool for Torres-Paris. There’s been a few claims of evidence out there, uncorroborated so far though.”</p><p>“Hm. That betting pool, <em>Voyager</em>’s worst kept secret. Another thing we have Tom to blame for,” Kathryn clicks her tongue in disapproval and drains her glass.</p><p><em>Damn! Did he really mention the betting pool</em>?</p><p>Janeway draining her glass with that decisiveness typically signals an end to their evening, but he isn’t having it. He rises to refill it before she can wave him away, ducking his head again so she can’t catch his eye.</p><p>The betting pool is another item on their taboo list, something never talked about, yet another thing they as a command team have tacitly agreed to pretend does not exist. Until now, he wasn’t even aware she knew about it, but he realises of course, Tuvok must keep her informed. He wonders just how detailed this information might be. He is uncomfortably aware that they—the Captain and her First Officer—are the lead pair in the pool, the <em>original</em> pair, and that nearly all the bets on them are not even on a basis of <em>if</em> but <em>when</em>. He still isn’t sure if Kathryn knows about that part of it, but he’s damned if he is going to be the one to let on. He usually plays into her pretense that no one sees the thing that sizzles between them, a heartbeat away from bursting into flame. Hell, he usually plays into her pretense that <em>nothing</em> sizzles between them at all.</p><p>When he looks up again, Kathryn is watching him, her head cocked to the side, making him feel like she’s been reading his thoughts. She says deliberately, watching his face, “No, the <em>second worst</em> kept secret—”</p><p>His heart begins to race, and he has to work hard to keep his expression impassive. <em>Is she finally going to talk about this?</em></p><p>But she goes on, deliberately, “—the <em>second</em> worst kept secret, after the inevitability of Tom and B’Elanna getting together.”</p><p><em>Damn it. The nerve of her.</em>   </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Made for Each Other</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Is he really saying this aloud? </p><p>She does not react, just stares out the viewport, chin raised, her face impassive.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">2 - Made for Each Other</span>
</p><p>“I would’ve cleaned up,” Kathryn says, stretching out the one arm while carefully holding her still-full glass of wine level and rubbing the back of her neck with the other, “if I had been allowed to actually know about the betting pool in the first place.”</p><p>He sighs with both relief and frustration. So she really is going to keep on pretending not to know she and he are the original couple giving rise to the betting pool, and it is back to comfortable denial for them as usual.</p><p>Returning to the topic at hand, B’Elanna Torres and Tom Paris, he says, “Really? I just never saw it. I mean, I can see why he would go after her— I mean he’s gone after every attractive woman on the ship at some point, and I really wish I could say present company excluded, but there is that best-never-mentioned incident that I'm not going to mention," he ducks his head with a brief smile, while Kathryn holds a dramatic embarrassed hand to her brow, "- but I didn’t think he was her type. They’re constantly at each other’s throats, they don't seem to have anything in common.”</p><p>“Honestly, Chakotay, that might be one of the most clueless things I’ve ever heard.”</p><p>“I mean, Tom is so… And B’Elanna…”</p><p>She is just looking at him, nonplussed, giving him a chance to figure it out.</p><p>“B’Elanna is so… powerful, so <em>no nonsense</em>. So deep and passionate,” he frowns, searching for the reasons why he never saw it. “And Paris! I mean, I’ve come to appreciate the guy, and he certainly adds fun to life aboard ship, but he is so <em>only </em>nonsense. So shallow, superficial… You’d think he’d wind up with one of the…” He stops himself before naming any of the easy lays on the ship, but he knows Kathryn knows just where he was going. “Or just be happy with some of those sleazy types he so constantly writes into his holodeck programs. I don’t know…”</p><p>“You know, it always surprises me how for someone who is generally pretty good with people and who does a fair job of taking care of everyone’s emotional needs, you can be pretty dense.”</p><p>“Oh?” He would like to take offence but knows he doesn’t have much right to. This is not really news to him. Since coming aboard <em>Voyager</em> and discovering his Maquis inner circle had been infiltrated by no less than <em>two</em> double agents, if there is one area in which his confidence has been shaken, it’s in his ability to gauge other people’s inner motivations. In contrast, Kathryn has proven herself able to read people with almost unfailing precision practically from the first minute she lays eyes on them. This intuition, her ability to see into the heart of people, what they have to give, and what they need to be able to give it, is one of her leadership superpowers he has come to most admire. “So tell me then,” he says.</p><p>She sighs and puts down her glass before twisting on the couch into her customary awkward-looking thinking pose, observing the stars flicking past.</p><p>Chakotay thinks again he really must propose turning the couch to actually face the viewport since she is so often to be found twisted at this awkward angle. But he knows she would resist any such practical proposal to make her life more comfortable, so he holds his tongue.</p><p>She says, “You know, I generally never tire of looking at the stars, but somehow, right now, I miss seeing <em>weather</em>. It feels like so long since we’ve seen sunshine. Clouds. But right now, I miss the rain. A good old Indiana thunderstorm. Rainwater running down the windows... Ok, so Tom Paris. Does everything he can to be funny, to make everything a joke, to seem brash and unconcerned about what people think about him. Desperately vulnerable and needing approval from authority figures. Thinking this will never come, he plays the fool to get in before someone else has the chance to take him down, do it for him. The way his father always did. A thrill seeker, searching for danger, a nihilist edge. All those things that come to him easily—girls, laughs, lovers, his own skills—lose all value for him. Then there’s B’Elanna. Half Klingon, half human, at home in neither skin, in neither culture, angry with the universe for existing at all. All that passion and ability and attitude that almost no one knows what to do with, much less herself. So tough because she is so desperately vulnerable. Quite apart from the chemistry they obviously share, for Tom she has the dangerous edge he craves. For her, he can keep up with her, is not intimidated by how tough she is, but instead is charmed by it, sees straight through it. They can see past each other’s self-loathing and contain that part of each other, make the other see the worth of what they despise in themselves… Really, they’re made for each other. They bring out the best in each other. They might not quite have seen that yet, but it is there alright.”</p><p>“Made for each other,” he repeats softly, staring at Kathryn as she gazes out the viewport at the cold stars, wishing for rain.</p><p>There is a long silence.</p><p>He wonders what her reading of him is like. Her reading of them both. What bet would she place on them in the betting pool?</p><p>Once again the unmentionable, the taboo, this constant minefield of the forbidden. It has become too much.</p><p>He finds himself speaking fast and very softly, so softly he is not sure if she can hear him or not, not sure whether he is actually speaking aloud. Maybe not, or she would surely have shut him down already, “In the very early days, when I first met you, Kathryn, when I first came aboard this ship, when you first invited me to be your First Officer, I accepted because I sensed deep down that this was a partnership that can work. And it did, on a professional level, pretty much instantly. But from the first, I thought, the <em>personal</em> level was going to be where the real rewards lay. I’d come from turbulent relationships, a whole string of them. You probably don’t want to hear this, you don’t need to, and I don’t mean to boast or sound arrogant, but I’ve always just fallen into relationships so easily, sexual relationships. Too easily. Women have always chased me, right from when I was a cadet. Until I came aboard this ship, I can’t remember I time I wasn’t with someone, or multiple someones, usually without even really trying. In the first week on <em>Voyager</em>, I would have placed a bet myself on us falling into bed within days. A week at the most. I didn’t know you yet, but that was the vibe I was getting. That had been my experience of how life worked up to then.”</p><p><em>Is he really saying this aloud? </em>She does not react, just stares out the viewport, chin raised, her face impassive<em>.</em></p><p>“When it didn’t work out that way, I wasn’t even disappointed. I was <em>charmed</em>. It actually became something of a relief <em>not</em> to fall straight into something sexual. And it’s made me become a better man, a better officer, and a better friend. I don’t regret it. I once told you I was a patient man. And I have been patient. But I never thought I would fall so in love, I never suspected I even could, not like this, so hard and hopelessly. And it was sweet, has been sweet, such a slow burn. For the longest time I savoured it. Just what my scalded heart needed, what my burned-out soul needed. There was a purity to it that was so new to me, an innocence. I meant it when I said it was enough for me as long as I could give you what you needed, support you.”</p><p>He pauses, seeing that though she is holding herself very still, hardly breathing, she is crying, slow heavy quiet tears, trickling one by one down her face, turned up as ever to the coldly flickering stars.</p><p>It is the quiet, controlled way she cries that kills him. It is the final drop that makes the glass run over. “But over time,” he whispers, hating himself for doing this to her, saying this to her, what he has sworn to both of them he would never do, placing the burden of himself on her shoulders, “over time, it's come more and more to feel like even if I have what you need, you won't accept it, don't want it from me. I’ve come to feel like a lovelorn boy, ridiculous, a child with a desperate crush. Pining over something I can’t have. And making both of us miserable, tiptoeing through a minefield of never-ending taboos. At first I thought this could happen between us, but no, it turns out I'm way out of my league. We can do the professional thing; I can do that. I can be your loyal first officer. I can be a paragraph or two in the serious historical biography of one of Starfleet's great Captains. But on the personal level, I don’t know anymore. It’s killing me, and it’s not helping you either. All this I have to give, <em>need</em> to give, that you don’t need from me, that you don’t want from me, that you are not willing to accept from me... It’s not…”</p><p>He finds he has slumped forward at some point, his head in his hands, and now he is crying himself, big, hot gulping tears.</p><p>He is startled to feel her cool hand on his shoulder, then the other held over the hands covering his face and his shameful tears.</p><p>He falls to his knees before her, reaching up blindly to her sitting on the edge of the couch above him, and somehow she folds his whole big, bearish form into her slim cool embrace, tucking his hot wet face under her neck, one hand caressing his hair, the other patting him on the back as she rocks him and holds him while he weeps his ugly tears against her.</p><p>“I don’t…” she begins.</p><p>“No, no. Don’t,” he says.  </p><p>“I can’t…” she tries.</p><p>“No, no,” he sobs. “You can’t. We can’t. I can’t.”</p><p>“But... it's not that... I don't...” her voice drops half an octave, fading to the faintest, most broken of whispers, "love you..."</p><p><em>Oh, for fuck's sake, Kathryn! </em>He is heartbroken.<em> What was that? An admission, or a denial?</em> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Not Like This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She rocks him and pats him, humming and tutting comfort like he is a small child.</p><p>Her chest is wet with his tears and snot. He rarely cries, but when he does it is not glamorous. </p><p>He tries to pull back, “I’m sorry–“</p><p>But she shushes him and holds on to him more strongly.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She rocks him and pats him, humming and tutting comfort like he is a small child.</p><p>Her chest is wet with his tears and snot. He rarely cries, but when he does it is not glamorous.</p><p>He tries to pull back, “I’m sorry–“</p><p>But she <em>shush</em>es him and holds on to him more tightly.</p><p>His sobs begin to calm, and he is breathing strong against her, hearing her heart beating fast under his ear, the rush and fill of the breath in her lungs. Her face is lowered, resting on the top of his head. Her warm breath feathers over his skin, her fingers trace lines of electricity through his hair. Then she places the softest of kisses on his brow. Her hands were cool, but her lips are warm.</p><p>Despite his misery, maybe because of it, intensifying it, he feels a powerful surge of desire, raw lust for all that has been denied him for so long, denied them, their strong attraction, long abstinence, sleepless nights of chaste pining and adoration from afar, and here it is, this strong electricity of her touch, her breath, the pounding of her heart, the swell of her breast under his cheek, her slim lithe body finally wrapped around his own, her indescribably delicious scent, this chemical thing between them making him want to press himself into her, lose himself in her.</p><p>He lifts his head to look her close in the face. Her cheeks are wet with old tears, but she meets his gaze with clear eyes filled with emotion he can’t quite read, but fears is compassion, pity.</p><p>She cradles his swollen red face in her slender fingers, and traces over the lines of his tattoo. “Oh, Chakotay,” she breathes.</p><p>His eyes close as he feels himself start to tremble.</p><p>She places a soft consoling kiss on his brow, and then his cheek. And then suddenly there is the sweetest thrill as her lips are pressed gently against his. He opens his lips to hers, inhaling her essence, her breath sweet and floral, and it is like a drug, and his whole body sings and tingles with a surge of blood and it fills him with a violence for more, a passion to make her admit, accept—even if she cannot say that she loves him–that she <em>desires </em>him, <em>wants </em>him, <em>cannot be without him</em>. His arms tighten around her, one hand sliding into her hair, her beautiful hair he has so often longed to touch, the other around the small of her small waist, and he pulls her down against him, pushing his tongue deep in her mouth. Momentarily her whole body stiffens in resistance, but as rapidly goes limp against him, yielding, her tongue tangling hot and wet against his own, her arms sliding around him to further close the now non-existent gaps between them, the softness of her body pushing in to crush against the hardness of his own.</p><p>But that moment of resistance has brought him back to his senses. <em>No. Not like this.</em></p><p>He pushes her back, himself back, stands, angrily wipes the tears and the electrical tingle of her kisses from his face, his lips, with the back of his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says.</p><p>She also rises, holds her hands out towards him, but he can’t tell if she means to draw him back or to push him away. “It was <em>me</em>,” she whispers.</p><p>“No, it was me. It was all me. It can’t be like this. Not like this.”</p><p>He turns and stumbles from the room.</p><p>*</p><p>The next day she is on the bridge hours before Alpha shift begins. She has not eaten or slept, but she sits in her Captain’s chair with her inevitable cup of coffee in her hand and does what she believes is a very close representation of business as usual.</p><p>He doesn’t come in to his shift. She does not mention his absence, and nor does anyone else, presumably believing this must be prearranged, and he is off performing other normal duties elsewhere.</p><p>*</p><p>An hour into gamma shift, Tuvok requests a private conference with her in her ready room.</p><p>They have walked in and she’s sat down on her side of her desk, leaving him to sit quite formally in the seat placed in front of it. He sits very straight opposite her, a hand resting lightly on each knee, his face expressionless.</p><p>They sit and look at each other in silence for a time. He raises an eyebrow but does not speak.</p><p>“Tuvok?”</p><p>“Captain, may I get you a drink? Perhaps a soporific tea? A light meal?”</p><p>She looks down at the coffee mug held tightly in her hand. It is empty.</p><p>When she looks up at him again, his eyebrow raises even higher, “Captain, it has come to my attention you have been on duty for nearly nineteen hours. I believe it might be expedient for you to go and rest.”</p><p>“Yes, Tuvok. Thank you, my friend. I suspect you’re right.”</p><p>*</p><p>On the second day, Chakotay comes on to the bridge ten minutes before his shift starts as usual. They exchange a nod, and a small smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes.</p><p>She works in her ready room. After some time, he brings her some reports. He places them on the table, flashes a small smile, no dimples in evidence. “Are you alright?” he says softly, kindly.</p><p>“Yes,” she raises her chin, straightens her shoulders, resisting the urge to massage her temples. “You?”</p><p>He nods.</p><p>She offers him a drink.</p><p>He politely refuses, perhaps at some other time.</p><p>*</p><p>In between the never-ending onslaught of crisis after crisis, things resume, go on as before, as always, as ever, in as close as what passes for a routine as can exist in the Delta Quadrant: their weekly meals - perhaps more often skipped, but always due to one eventuality or another; their working closely and effectively together as a professional command team; their small demonstrations of affection and support; their easy banter; their visits to each other’s bedside when one or the other inevitably winds up in sickbay; sometimes they even flirt a little.</p><p>But the spontaneous sparkle and charm, the promise and delight, the innocence and joy between them is gone, replaced instead by a heavy ache that easily kicks over into anger and suspicion in the far-too-frequent stressful experiences marking their ongoing odyssey through the Delta Quadrant.</p><p>And things are never quite the same.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>